Bill Gates III Gives Keynote Address as Seattle Rotary Turns 100

Club Celebrates On-Going Effort to Eradicate Polio and Promises to Tackle Malaria in Next Century

The Rotary Club of Seattle celebrated its 100th anniversary on Thursday night and presented Bill Gates III, the co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with an Honorary Membership. Gates also delivered the evening’s keynote address.

More than 1,000 Rotarians and community leaders gathered to hear Gates’ speech and acknowledge the Rotary Club of Seattle for their dedication to service during the past 100 years. The Club’s recent local and regional projects include a $250,000 project for the Seattle Rotary Education Center at the YMCA and the Rotary Boys and Girl’s Club’s expansion project that included a donation of $375,000. The event also highlighted Seattle Rotary’s Centennial Project of $4.2 million that will create the Family Services’ Rotary Support Center for Families that is expected to provide services to 5,000 homeless families.

In addition to Seattle Rotary’s regional projects, the Club has embraced Rotary International’s efforts to eradicate polio around the world. For the past twenty years the Rotary Club of Seattle and Rotary International have been largely focused on the eradication of polio, and thanks to the generosity of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International will match $200 million to the Gates Foundation’s $355 million gift toward making that dream a reality.

In his address, Gates recognized Seattle Rotarians for their century of local and international work on projects designed to improve the health, education and welfare of less-advantaged people. “As Rotary spread across the globe so did the principle of ‘service above self,’” said Gates. “Rotary provides the infrastructure for scaling up one of the best ideas that human beings ever had—that helping others is not just a duty; it’s also fun and rewarding.”

Club President Nancy Sclater talked about the next Century project: The need to rid the world of deadly malaria, a disease blamed for killing millions of people – many children – around the world every year. “We absolutely must finish ensuring that polio never affects anyone again. But we now have the opportunity to focus on another challenge for our second century – to use the successes of the past as the foundation to conquer the problems facing us worldwide. To ultimately eradicate malaria and to see Rotary clubs around the world distributing malaria bed nets, for example, would have a staggering impact.”

Seattle Rotary remains the world’s largest and the fourth oldest Rotary club with nearly 700 members. It also demonstrates a deep commitment to diversity with 2008-09 President Nancy Sclater, the fourth woman to serve as club president. With its organization, Seattle Rotary brought Rotary to the Northwest with new club sponsorships from Portland to Alaska, as well as in Asia. Locally, Puget Sound’s District 5030, made up of over 50 clubs in King County, has more than 3,000 members. Rotary International now reports 1.2 million members in more than 32,000 clubs in 200 countries.

Contacts

For The Rotary Club of Seattle
Lee Keller, 206-799-3805 (cell)
lee {at} thekellergroup(.)com